


the fire in our ribs

by another_pseud (gaysandcrime)



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bran Stark is a sweetheart, Bran is a nerd, First Love, First Time, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Joffrey is a rebel, Joffrey needs a hug (or six), Kissing, Love, M/M, Minor Violence, Oral Sex, POV Joffrey, Rare Pair, Rare Pairing, Romance, The Author Regrets Nothing, and bran makes sure he gets it, he just needs all the love, lots and lots of kissing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 04:32:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13046553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaysandcrime/pseuds/another_pseud
Summary: “What do you want to be? When you grow up, I mean.”“A villain,” Joffrey drawls blandly. He looks down at their hands, Bran's fingers intertwined with his own. Bran laughs, a sound so incandescent that it sparks something terrifying, deep in Joffrey's gut.





	the fire in our ribs

**Author's Note:**

> POV Joffrey
> 
> I know we all love to hate Joffrey, but I just can't help myself; everyone deserves a happy ending. Disclaimer: anything recognizable belongs to GRRM and the creators of GoT.

the fire in our ribs  


_the fire in our ribs fills our lungs with smoke_

_blood on our tongues and ashes in our throats_

_and we'll never admit just how much it burns_

 

Joffrey smiles when he sees Bran for the first time. He is good, he is wholesome, he is everything decent in the world and like a new guilt toy from his divorced parents, Joffrey wants to break him.

He sees him there, that first day of school, and hot rage burns through him like a fire in a dry field. Bran Stark, with his shiny shoes and square-framed black glasses. Trousers and white dress shirt so ironed his wretched mother probably spent all morning making them _just perfect, because it's the first day of school and you wouldn't want to make a bad impression, dear._ His tie is knotted tight against his throat and lies flat and straight as a swords edge. His blazer and socks match, and just looking at him makes Joffrey want to puke up every last bit of the store bought breakfast his mother had pretended she had prepared that morning. The fire inside of him burns and burns and burns, and sometimes it's as if just touching something would set it aflame and turn it to ash.

A naive boy from a Northern town where the people are vastly outnumbered by livestock and the sun only shows up twice a year. He looks at him and all he sees are whiteout blizzards and rocky outcroppings and goddamned rain. Stoic and austere and Northern is Bran Stark, like his father and his older brother and all the rest of that disgusting, idiotic family. His father loves Ned Stark, of course, and that in itself is enough of a reason to hate every single one of them – but Joffrey looks at Bran and feels a rage he's never felt before, and suddenly hating the rest of them isn't as important as hating this one. Perfect creases, perfect shine, every little perfect thing about this boy makes Joffrey want to slice him open until his blood dyes his perfect white shirt red, until every bit of perfection is torn to shreds, bruised and unrecognizable. He wants to smash his fist into a smile so straight only braces could have created it and watch the bones break and the blood pour and the tears flow. To take apart every little thing that makes him perfect and turn him into nothing – that is what Joffrey wants to do to Bran Stark; he wants to possess him.

To destroy him.

He is fire and blood and fury, ready to stab and bite and bleed and _burn_ his way to victory. Joffrey wants to laugh, and that is when he sees it; Bran's hair turns to fire in the sunlight, red and orange and dark. Dangerous. Intoxicating. _Beautiful.  
_

He sees Bran for the first time that day, and Joffrey smiles.

 

+

 

Joffrey knows the anatomy of the school like the sloppy insides of his brother's dead cat; its ins and outs, its organs and functions, its nervous and circulatory systems.

It was enough to drive a man crazy. People called Joffrey crazy either way, and so he had done what came naturally and slammed Bran up against the lockers and kissed him, full and harsh on the mouth.

The metallic clang rang down the hallway, the heavy thud of two bodies pressed against the locker door.

Satisfying didn't even begin to cover it.

With both palms flat against the warmth of Bran's chest, holding him still against the cold metal, Joffrey had been braced for any number of possible reactions. He could feel the stillness of Bran's body underneath his hands, the way his muscles tensed, contracting and coiling. The way his mouth was still and slack underneath the insistent press of Joffrey's mouth. With his tongue darting over the seam of Bran's lips, he had tasted him, he had learned him. He had expected Bran to push him off immediately, but instead it took almost two minutes and Joffrey used all that time to take what he wanted and enjoy it as much as he could. When Bran pushed him off he let him, because he had expected this, and he knew there was a high chance that Bran would attempt to throw a punch. He'd seen Bran fight, in the first week of school, after hours out on the field where some of the jocks' dull idea of entertainment was to test the mettle of the new kid. In the end, Bran had tested them.

He expected Bran to run out with his heels on fire. “I'm not gay,” he expected Bran to say, eyes wide and scared like a doe caught at the end of a rifle's barrel, hands trembling before they turned into fists and knocked his teeth out. Men had killed for less.

Instead Bran said, “I've never been kissed before,” which Joffrey knew to be true, although he had seen the admiring glances at him during fencing class. And then Bran had reached out, curled one hand in the collar of Joffrey's shirt and said, all in a rush, “Do that again,” which Joffrey had not expected at all.

He'd leaned in, brushed their lips together, and whispered a soft, “No,” breath hot and pressed right up against the other boy's mouth. He'd pushed himself back just long enough to enjoy the look of confusion, of shock, of hurt, before he amended his statement. There had been fire in those blue eyes. Fire, fire burning bright. “Not here, not where anyone can see us.”

Joffrey smiles at him then, with his green cats-eyes hooded and his golden hair like a lion's mane, all hard and sharp and mean. No masks, no pretending, no lies. Someone once told him he'd catch more flies with honey, but they were an idiot. Joffrey isn't honey, and he isn't vinegar. He is a razor, sharp and cold and pressed too close to the unprotected skin of your neck, and he refuses to make himself pretend to be something else. He holds out his hand.

Bran, the innocent little wolf cub, takes it and follows.

 

+

 

Joffrey teaches Bran how to kiss in the backseat of his disgustingly expensive car, his guilt gift from his parents after the divorce, all gold leather interior and blood red exterior. They park at the drive-in and Joffrey shows him how their mouths fit together, teases out the soft slickness of Bran's tongue while images and colours flash on the screen in the background.

Bran pushes Joffrey's hands away whenever they wander too far down south, and more's the pity. “Just kissing,” he'll say, with his mouth red and swollen from hard kisses, blue eyes nearly black with arousal, skin flushed and a boner tenting his pants that could clearly be seen from the next town over. _“Just kissing,”_ Joffrey will hiss, exasperation escaping in the drawn out _s_ of each word, and then tug Bran's mouth toward his again, hands running over his back, rubbing down to cup and squeeze the curve of his ass.

 

+

 

“You're _awful_ at this, you know,” Joffrey had said to him after the first few times they kissed, at the insistent, eager press of Bran's mouth against his. The lie tasted sweet and cold in his mouth, and it was worth it for that sudden pull back, the shock on his face and the hurt in his eyes.

“Well, we can't _all_ be kissing experts,” Bran said, not just a little judgmentally, and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Joffrey had smiled. “No, I suppose we can't.” He'd leaned forward and sucked Bran's lower lip into his mouth harshly. “I guess I'll have to teach you, then.”

Bran gasped and squirmed. “Oh,” he said, “I'll need lots of, um, practice, right?” and suddenly _just kissing_ didn't seem like such a bad thing anymore.

 

+

 

Bran Stark kills him.

Little earthbound Bran Stark, he has Joffrey so caught, so wild, so frustrated that he's constantly on edge, mind racing, body racing, every nerve of him singing with tension, gears humming, churning, engine pumping, going too many miles over the speed-limit and not caring one bit. So he drinks, and he smokes, and he drags, and even after winning five races in a row half-cocked out on vodka and blow he's still ready to tear screaming out of his own skin.

“The little wolf's got you wrapped around his finger, doesn't he?” Ramsay laughs, flicking his pocket knife open and closed over and over again.

Joffrey snarls and snatches the blade out of Ramsay's hands, pitching it as hard as he can. It lands with a clatter on the pavement, too far away to be heard. His palm is sliced open and bleeding onto the grass, but he can't bring himself to care.

 

+

 

He kisses Bran on the neck, sucks hard enough to leave a bright red mark that will purple into the shape of his mouth.

“Joffrey, don't,” Bran protests, and pushes his shoulders, but not hard. Definitely not hard enough for him to actually mean it, or for Joffrey to take him seriously. When Joffrey catches his wrists and pins them, easily, Bran only moans softly.

“Not where people can see,” Bran says, the words stuttering as he's begun to pant softly in the spaces between syllables. Joffrey bites him underneath the Adam's apple in retaliation, worries the soft, vulnerable skin beneath his mouth and sucks hard.

“So wear a turtleneck,” Joffrey tells him. He begins to work on a fresh bruise, at the pulse point of Bran's left carotid artery.

Bran shudders and closes his eyes. “It's too warm out, people will think I'm crazy,” he protests lightly.

“Mm,” Joffrey murmurs, humming into his kisses. “People see _me_ and think I'm crazy. People don't even _notice_ you.”

“Fuck you. I hate you,” Bran says, breath catching on the _a_ of _hate_. His hot little body shudders underneath Joffrey's, his fingers curling into the golden hair at the back of Joffrey's head, arching up into the press of lips, of tongue, of teeth.

“I hate you, too,” Joffrey says, so that Bran will push him back and kiss him hard.

He does.

 

+

 

Bran buttons up his collar tight at school, but the blood-red-violet bruises still peek through, incriminating, daring. He wears a scarf for a few days and then switches to a turtleneck and no one accuses him of being crazy. Joffrey catches him later, traps him between his body and the rough stone wall, and sucks a hickey hard just above the edges of the turtleneck.

“No one sees you, no one notices you, no one cares about you,” he whispers as he does it, his nails digging into Bran's skin.

“You do, though,” Bran whispers back, and Joffrey wants to punch him, to hurt him, to slice him open and carve out his heart.

Instead he kisses him as gently as he can. “No,” he says, his face pressed into the fire of Bran's hair, inhaling the warm scent of him, Bran's face pressed into Joffrey's shoulder, tucked against his chest, the fit of him perfect. Joffrey leaves a line of bruises along his jawline, each one like a brand seared on with his mouth, defying the soft security of a turtleneck. Let people look if they want. Let people see. He wants to brand him all over, ruin that pretty silken skin until it's covered with traces and marks of him in bites and bruises, all that flesh worked over and maybe then that will be enough to satisfy that urge to sign him, to carve his initials into him, _JB_ right where everyone can see. “No, I don't. I don't care.”

The lie fills his mouth with ash and he hates how untrue those words are, hates himself and Bran in equal measure. If he had a knife in his hand, only the Gods know which of them would be left spilling blood onto the ground beneath their feet.

 

+

 

Rumour has it that the new kid Stark is a real ladies man; the evidence of it in passionate splotches on his skin, like a necklace of mouth shaped marks. Joffrey thinks they make a good substitute for bruises shaped like his fingers, and wonders how hard he would have to press on that perfect white skin before his hand would be seared into Bran like his mouth now is.

 

+

 

 _Joffrey, when are you going to grow up?_ his parents always ask, and how he hates it, hates _them_ . Growing up means being miserable and alone and angry, just like them. Growing up means drinking too much wine and fucking whores and turning your children into miniature versions of your fucked up self. Joffrey doesn't want to grow up, not like that, he's a force of destruction, the natural tendency of things to turn chaotic, dry summer heat and wildfyre burning and burning and burning. He sees his father, blue eyed and black haired and big like a bull _._ He sees his mother, blonde haired and green eyed and slender, tall, sharp. Just like him, just like Tommen and Myrcella and every other Lannister. He sees what no one else sees, what no one else wants to see, and never lets himself ask the question. But he knows that if growing up means _fucking your own sibling,_ then he never wants to fucking grow up, and he never will.

Now, Bran Stark – there's a boy you can hang your hopes and dreams on. Hitch a star to this boy and he'll take you places. He wants to be a soldier and a doctor, he tells Joffrey, as he bandages up the laceration across Joffrey's knuckles. Respectable, decent white-collar job. Any parent would be proud. Bran, with his caring, careful hands that cover Joffrey's and linger there, with his dedication to righting wrongs and helping people, and his disgustingly wonderful patriotism. The closest thing to a hero the real world has. And perhaps that is why he answers Bran's question the way he does.

“What do you want to be? When you grow up, I mean.”

“A villain,” Joffrey drawls blandly. He looks down at their hands, Bran's fingers intertwined with his own. Bran laughs, a sound so incandescent that it sparks something terrifying, deep in Joffrey's gut.

 

+

 

Out in the Northern country, Bran says, you can drive for miles and miles before you see another person.

Joffrey reckons that the person you would see would still be an idiot.

Out in the Northern country, Bran says, there are fields upon fields of grass, that go on forever, and when the wind blows it ripples through in waves so it looks like the ocean.

Joffrey wants to know if he's ever even seen the ocean.

“If fields of grass thrill you so much,” Joffrey sneers, “then the ocean is going to blow your fucking mind.”

 

+

 

Bran clutches at Joffrey's waist, his whole body pressed to Joffrey's back with the wind whistling past, the thrum of the motorcycle rumbling beneath them.

“Faster,” Bran will always be the first to urge, although Joffrey with his grip already on the throttle has never known what it's like to take it slow. The world blurs past them in inconsequential streaks, only one of them wearing the helmet and it certainly isn't Joffrey. The surprise is that Bran has always been this way, a demon for speed and danger. When all of him clutches to Joffrey's body like this there is nothing that reminds Joffrey more of the fact that today could be the day that they die, now, together, all at once.

That there is only the single helmet and that Joffrey always gives it to Bran is a fact that is lost on neither of them, though they do a good job of ignoring it.

 

+

 

Bran is an excellent shot. He picks tin cans off of a fence with a rifle – 200 meters, 350 meters, 500.

He shot a coyote once, he tells Joffrey. It was the worst thing he's ever done, and also the best. It's partly what made him want to be a soldier, and all of what made him want to be a doctor. Joffrey tells him how he knows it happened, two shots, one in the chest and one in the head. It would not have been sport, because Bran would consider that cruel, and if he kills he kills out of need, so livestock was threatened, perhaps, or even a family member.

“It was Arya,” Bran says, “That morning she had been out to collect the eggs, which she hated but I made her do, and if I hadn't seen it in time then...I don't know what, then. They get crazy when they're that starved.”

“But you did see it,” Joffrey says. “You took care of the problem. You'd do just about anything to protect your family, that much is obvious.” And isn't that fucking great, Bran Stark with his perfect home and his perfect life and his perfect grades also has a perfect family that he loves with all his little Northern heart. What does Joffrey have? What does he have other than a mother who ignores him and a father who hates him and two siblings who will never understand what unstable and toxic marriages are like.

Bran cocks the rifle and hefts it up to his shoulder, staring down the length of the barrel. “I'll protect you, too,” he says, and pulls the trigger. A can flies off of the fence with the hollow sound of a bullet piercing metal, 650 meters away. Joffrey realizes that in that moment he has Bran's loyalty, as easily and deeply as if he'd cut their fingers with a knife as children and pressed the beads of blood that welled up together until it smeared crimson between them. Bran is going to protect him, but who is going to protect Bran _from_ him?

These are the questions that ought to keep you up at night, but they don't. They don't.

 

+

 

When Joffrey was nine an arsonist blew up the church in the next town over. The flames were tall and wild, and they killed every single father, mother, child and priest that had been within the buildings walls. The pictures in the news were black and white, but Joffrey new that the fire burned the same green as his eyes, and that the substance it was made from came from the basement lab in his mothers' mansion.

He had wondered about the substance, the liquid fire in tiny bottles, and using every cutesy picture Tommen or Myrcella had drawn that his mother had placed on the fridge he built little nests in metal containers in the backyard. With the first batch he made a miscalculation and dropped the bottle of green liquid into the metal container too hard. The flames shot up like green bolts of lightening, searing and burning and melting, licking his face and singing his hair. It had been an experiment gone wrong, he most certainly wasn't a budding little arsonist, but this was difficult to explain to the screaming maid who had found him, smelling of smoke and both eyebrows singed off.

His parents had wanted to send him to a specialist, and then again, they hadn't. Like night and day they were trapped in a dance of opposites like always, never one in accordance with the other. An agreement was never reached.

“What in the Seven Hells is wrong with you, boy?” his father had yelled.

“There is nothing wrong with Joffrey,” his mother had insisted, which Joffrey had been smart enough at nine to know meant there was something very wrong indeed.

 

+

 

Bran's home looks comparable to the set of The Partridge Family. It screams loud to Joffrey: domesticity, happy family, loving home. Apple pies and cookies on weekends, family game nights and story time on rainy days. There are lots of pictures of the Stark children, and very few of their parents, although their wedding photo is placed front and centre above the fireplace. It's obvious to Joffrey that Bran gets his lovely red hair and blue eyes from his mother, and his strong chin and cheekbones from his father. A perfect half and half of the two, something all the Stark children have that Joffrey never will. It makes him push Bran up against the wall and kiss him underneath a family portrait that must have been taken last year because Bran looks most the same but the landscape is clearly Northern.

When their hips press together Bran moans into his mouth and the heat in Joffrey's body is so intense he is certain he could melt the stone of the wall, set all the pictures and their bodies aflame so every part of Bran burns as red as his hair.

“Bran? Is that you, honey?”

They're apart in an instant, a good four feet of empty space and guilt between them by the time Mrs. Stark finds them.

“Ah, mom,” Bran says, only slightly out of breath, fooling nobody. “I didn't know you were home. Else I would have said hi.”

“That's quite alright, honey,” Mrs. Stark says. She's a faded version of the photograph. Eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep, tell-tale lines of years and stress and laughter around them. Her lipstick is still carefully applied, only lightly smudged from where her lips had been pressed up against a teacup filled with sherry, no doubt. “I just got home from work,” she says, patting her hair distractedly in the presence of company.

“This is Joffrey Baratheon,” Bran says quickly. “He's my study partner. We're...working on a project together. For science.”

Dark blue eyes look at Joffrey and recognize him, his name. She takes in his untucked shirt, his tight jeans, his tousled hair, his lack of books. Nicotine stains on his fingers and the faint smell of gasoline around them from his motorcycle outside. Joffrey had been wrong; Bran does not have her eyes, not these ones, tired and muted as stones deep in murky water. Joffrey imitates a polite smile, and says, “Pleasure to meet you,” as he had been taught to do by some long forgotten nanny, and even brushes a light kiss over the back of her hand.

“I wish you had told me company was coming, Bran,” she murmurs, withdrawing her hand, her dislike and displeasure turning obvious for a moment before fleeing back behind her tired mask. “I would have baked a pie.”

“I'm sorry,” says Bran.

Her hands come together, wringing out worry between them, twisting tighter and tighter. “Do you drink coffee, Joffrey?” she asks. “I could put on a pot.” She looks at him then, her scrutiny stone steady. “I don't let the kids drink it, of course, they're all too young.”

“ _Mama!”_ says Bran, sharp but pleading. He is embarrassed but not for the right reasons.

“No, thank you,” says Joffrey evenly.

“Well, you boys let me know if you need anything,” says Mrs. Stark. She looks at Joffrey for another moment before letting her heavy gaze drop. Down his body, then to her own hands, down her dress, down to the floor.

 

+

 

Bran has painted his room the blue of summer skies, and covered the walls with posters. There is one of singer Lady Gaga. The rest of them make his room look like a budding mini cineplex. _Captain America: Civil War. How To Train Your Dragon. Titanic. Spartacus. Jurassic World. Number 10 Cloverfield Lane. Up. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. The Notebook._

In the kitchen downstairs, Mrs. Stark is pouring a drink into her teacup and pretending it's tea.

Joffrey props his feet up on the bed and smacks a pack of cigarettes against the palm of his hand to get one out. “Your father's dead, isn't he? That's why you moved out here.”

Bran's mouth goes tight, but instead he says, “No shoes on the bed,” sternly, and pushes Joffrey's feet off. “And no smoking in my bedroom.”

Joffrey scoffs, but does not light the cigarette in his hand. Bran puts on a mixed CD. He has an excessive amount of them, mostly modern artists mixed with classical and jazz. The opening notes of _Thinking Out Loud_ start playing.

Corners of a book peek out from underneath the bed. Joffrey reaches down and tugs it out: Stephen King's _Salem's Lot_. Not exactly bedtime material. Then he opens the book and pictures of James Dean fall out. Bran goes pink when Joffrey picks up the pictures. Joffrey smirks and Bran glares, and Joffrey is immediately jealous of the fact that the anger in Bran's eyes is directed at the man in the photographs and not him.

“He was a really talented actor,” Bran says. “It's tragic.”

“He was an idiot,” says Joffrey. “That's why he's dead.” He wants to tear the pictures into tiny pieces and make Bran choke on them until they're all gone. Instead he asks, “Would you let James Dean get to second base with you?” and if his voice comes out more injured than scathing that's not important.

“Joffrey...” Bran says.

Joffrey shrugs and lights his cigarette. Bran reaches over and plucks it out of his mouth. Joffrey has the dignity to look irritated instead of immediately snatching it back.

“Don't need to pout,” Bran says, voice warm even as he stubs out the cigarette against a ceramic pencil holder; he does it carefully, the way he does everything.

“I do _not_ pout,” Joffrey bites out, not-pouting. He throws himself down onto the bed with his shoes on, and has to force himself not to cross his arms indignantly. Bran slips onto the bed next to him.

“James Dean is cool,” Bran says, and Joffrey almost shoves him out of the bed. Then Bran says, “But you're the coolest.” Suddenly Joffrey is very, very glad Bran is on the bed beside him and not shoved onto the floor. They lie on the small twin bed facing one another, both of them gone quiet. Joffrey places a hand on Bran's cheek.

 _'Will your mouth still remember the taste of my love,'_ Ed Sheeran sings softly in the background.

What was he doing with this boy, this boy who calls his mother mama sometimes, all soft and entreating to get what he wants.

Downstairs, right now, Mrs. Stark is pouring herself another sherry, only this time the teacup has been replaced with a coffee mug that says _#1 Dad_.

And Bran says, “...do you want to get to second base with me?”

Joffrey feels a twisting, a tightening in his gut, cutting in deeper and deeper. When Bran's shirt comes off you can see the lines of demarcation of the sun, slightly bronzed skin of his arms fading into paleness at the shoulders from working outside. His chest is paler than Joffrey guessed it would be, and covered with freckles too numerous to count, though he tries to anyways. There are a few scars on Bran's torso, on his back, and their sizes and shapes speak to Joffrey of fencing and sword fighting, rock climbing gone wrong. There are a couple of bruises from wrestling with his siblings and Joffrey's insistent pressing hands.

When Joffrey's shirt comes off, a comparison cannot help but be made. Every scar is a strip from a belt or a burn from a cigarette, every bruise a slap or punch or kick. There's one particularly ugly scar, a giant shiny pink thing like an overfed slug, which curls around and over the ribs on the left side of his body. Bran runs his fingers and then his tongue over it slowly, and Joffrey tells him that broken bottles are a much better weapon than you'd think.

Bran says he's sorry and Joffrey says that he reckons most people get their fair share of beatings every now and again. Bran responds with a whisper; he has, it's true, you can't really avoid it in a family with five kids, but never from someone who was legally bound to ensure his well-being. The twist inside Joffrey gets tighter and tighter and there's a hot feeling in the back of his throat that feels like words he doesn't know how to say.

Bran shivers underneath his fingertips like touching an exposed nerve. His stomach is tight and concave when he sucks in his breath and holds it. He doesn't flinch, doesn't move away when Joffrey's fingers curl tight and grip hard and hold him, holding onto him.

 _'those three words are said too much, they're not enough,'_ Snow Patrol, soft and gentle and heartbreaking.

Joffrey settles himself over Bran, pinning him down with his weight and trapping him against the bed. Bran laughs and shoves him, and they wrestle, half playful, half serious. Not knowing what's at stake, Joffrey thinks that the stakes must be very high indeed when he looks at Bran flushed and laughing above him and when he hears himself say, “One day I'll take you far away from here to the ocean.”

The words aren't what he wants to say but they win him a wide-eyed look and a kiss. No prospects for the future, his father always said, but what does he know? He pulls Bran's glasses off and sets them aside on the nightstand. “Do I look blurry without them? Can you see me?”

“Yeah,” Bran nods his head. “I see you perfectly.”

 

+

 

Never kissed in a bed before and they revel in the luxury of it, soft surface beneath them and Joffrey lets Bran strip him of his clothes the way he can tell he's always wanted to, slow and careful. Not like Joffrey, who wants to rip and tear, who's delicate with his mother and the white powder under his bed at home but not with the things he really, truly needs. Bran doesn't know. Bran runs his hands over Joffrey's shoulders and over his chest like the whole of him is a marvel. With his touch he strips Joffrey of other things, slow and careful, and Bran doesn't know.

The touch, the closeness makes them frantic, skin to skin with boxers still on and the bed beneath them. Heat like molten iron inside of him, starts up right between his lets and shivers in his stomach and in his core and the whole of him on fire, his cock hard enough to fuck through steel. Bran moaning against him when he feels it, not saying stop now when Joffrey palms him through his underwear, kneading and massaging. Hand around Joffrey's wrist like he wants to push him away but instead he just holds and squeezes.

Joffrey likes Bran on top of him, clutching and desperate, the weight of him slight and they fit into each other like one gear into another, working each other, each one making the other turn. He also likes him beneath him, and that's where he ends up next. Bran caged in by his arms and pinned down, struggling and wriggling, pushing back but never very hard at all, never meaning it, and, like the little idiot that he is, never trying to escape. Joffrey wants to rub out all of his scars and bruises on Bran's freckled skin, wants Bran to cover them with his own. Wants him to rub them out with hands and fingers, with mouth and tongue. With teeth. To rub and rub at the marks until they are forgotten, until all that can be remembered is Bran's tongue and teeth and mouth on his skin.

But those are Joffrey things, Joffrey desires, Joffrey thoughts. Bran isn't like that, he would never think to erase a scar by making a new one. Instead, he presses soft kisses, softer fingers, and traces words on the skin beneath Joffrey's heart that can not be spoken out loud.

 


End file.
